


A Seed

by littlebreadrolls



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Protective Hannibal Lecter, Trauma, referenced rape/noncon (not between the main characters)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26218657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlebreadrolls/pseuds/littlebreadrolls
Summary: A bad thing happened to Will when he was a child.Hannibal can't get over it.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, past will graham/others (non-con)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i keep coming up with plot ideas -- so many plot ideas -- but when i try to write stuff down, my anxiety-riddled brain's like, "Nah bitch, u r 2 bad at this, y even bother, lol." does anyone else struggle with this? i would gladly welcome tips/advice from other writers, if anyone wants to offer haha :'(
> 
> anyway, here is a fic. please be aware, it has referenced non-con that happened when one of the characters was a teenager! i don't want anyone to be inadvertently triggered by this content! thanks!

Will tells him during a night when they’ve both had a bit more to drink than usual. 

“I was twelve,” he begins, his voice coaxed soft and easy by the wine. In that moment, of course, Hannibal doesn’t yet know what is coming. He is not disquieted, and he is not afraid, and he has no presentiments; such, always, is the nature of time. He is merely intrigued. They are both such secretive men, men with secrets pitted inside of themselves as deeply as seeds within a pomegranate. It is an unexpected delight whenever Will decides to share a seed of his own volition.

“You were twelve,” Hannibal prompts. Will has been silent for a beat too long. 

Hannibal puts down the glass he's been holding and strokes Will’s hair; he's worried that Will might have fallen asleep. Will's system is not so accustomed to alcohol these days. Though he still indulges (Hannibal would never presume to control Will’s intake), his indulgences are more deliberative, less frequent. In fanciful moments, Hannibal likes to think that this change in Will’s behavior has been wrought by contentment: that Will is so happy in this place with Hannibal that he no longer has the urge to drink excessively. Realistically, however, Hannibal knows that the change was more likely wrought by marriage. 

During his time as a family man, Will would have grown and constricted whatever parts of himself he needed to, for Molly’s sake. He would have changed. Molly would have wanted to _change_ Will. The thought makes Hannibal want to curl his lip and sneer, no less for the fact that he, too, had once wanted to change Will. Hannibal rarely feels regret over doing things which he would condemn others for doing. He is a good survivor, and no good survivor regrets. 

And, anyway, he has no room for regrets when he has this instead: the two of them, pressed together on the warm leather sofa, half-sprawled in something Hannibal is too dignified to term a puppy pile. The balcony doors are open across from them, and in in in slips the fresh smell of frangipani, the chitter-chatter of late-evening birds, the warm breath of summer air. While it could be said that Hannibal enjoys every type of day (even the cruel, brutish days hold their appeal), this day has certainly been a tender thing. Beautiful and languorous. Something to savor. 

At the feeling of Hannibal’s hand in his hair, Will murmurs appreciatively; he's not asleep after all, though his eyes are closed. He says, “Yes, I was twelve. I was – Christ. I’m telling you this, you know, because I’ve told you so much already. Because you know me so well already. I _want_ to tell you.” He laughs, and his face is pressed against Hannibal’s neck, and his mouth is open, and so his laugh is smeared on Hannibal’s skin, and his breath feels like a physical touch. 

“I am glad.” In a voice as soft as the silky dusk outside the window, Hannibal says, “Tell me anything, Will.”

And Will tells him. 

It takes Will only a short while to tell him. Less than ten minutes. Hannibal doesn’t have a watch, but his sense of time is almost preternatural. He learned as a child how to slice away his consciousness -- or whatever sort of qualia that people must consider the consciousness -- away from the physical. He learned to observe his animal body, and the seconds that must inevitably wash by it, and the pains or pleasures that must touch it, and the physiological reactions that must always, always storm mercilessly through it, as if he were a scholar cataloging the behaviors of a trapped animal. 

So, as Will speaks, Hannibal carefully tracks the time ticking away. He measures the pace of his own heartbeat. He tracks the meandering rhythm of Will's voice. He notices that the wind-whipped frangipani is beating against the glass door every two seconds or so, and he notices, too, that Will's words have begun to end with a lazy little curl. The vestige of a New Orleans accent, perhaps. How novel. Will has never revealed such an accent to him before; Hannibal feels almost betrayed. He will have to file the information away in the part of his brain which he devotes entirely to Will.

It will be a poor filing though; the memories won't stick well. Right now, Hannibal is drunk, and alcohol has a deleterious effect on memory encoding. Right now, Hannibal thinks, Will is drunk too. It's not a new realization, of course, but it is a thought brought suddenly into sharp relief. Will is drunk, and so is Hannibal, and the words seem to be leaking out of Will so continuously and so easily and so honestly -- in a way that they never do when Will's not had too much to drink -- and then, for only a moment, Hannibal thinks the absurd thought that he is seeing something forbidden to him. It is absurd because Hannibal has never before felt that _anything_ was forbidden to him. It is absurd because Will’s confession is not stolen, but being given freely. Hannibal has taken much more, and with much less of a cause. 

The last time Hannibal felt like this, he had just torn into Will's insides with a knife. He cried then, he recalls. He doesn't regret the tearing, but sometimes he regrets not staying to admire his own work: not prising Will open with his hands and staring down at his slippery insides, as glittering and bright and precious as jewels. It's not an opportunity he'll ever have again. Soon after Will falls silent, he falls asleep. Hannibal helps him, grumbling and half-conscious, to bed. When he closes the balcony door, the branches beat more violently than ever, and Hannibal lies down in their bed beside Will and dreams of nothing. 

\--

The weather next morning is cool and gentle, as the weather here usually is. Hannibal rises just before the sky turns grey with dawn, as he usually does. He likes to have a cup of tieguanyin tea, watch the dishwater grey sky pinken into sunrise. Today, however, as he sets the kettle on to boil, Will interrupts his routine by slinking into the kitchen. It's a few hours earlier than Will would usually appear after a late night. When Hannibal turns from his place at the stove, he finds Will is disheveled, dressed in the same clothes as he fell asleep in, his eyes all bleary and blinking. 

"Good morning, Will," he says mildly. "I didn’t expect you up so early. I haven’t yet had time to prepare the breakfast I had planned, but if you give me just a moment – “ 

“Hannibal. Don’t.” Will can't seem to look Hannibal in the eyes, but he also won't let himself look away; Will hates nothing more than being considered weak. His sullen gaze settles somewhere on Hannibal's throat. “You – know. I told you, last night, didn’t I? About the ....”

Hannibal doesn’t do Will the discourtesy of pretending he doesn’t understand what he means. “The rape,” he says. “You did.” He is deliberate in his bluntness, in his lack of euphemism. Behind him, the stove is turning hot; drops of water on the kettle sizzle. He pays close attention to Will’s reactions. But Will has evidently prepared himself beforehand, for his reactions are noticeably muted. He holds himself still. Doesn't make a sound. Keeps himself from huffing out a sigh or turning his face away. 

Still, Will betrays himself. Despite his best efforts, he can't -- could never -- hold back his natural defiance. His expression is petulant; his mouth opens and closes -- forming the beginning of a word -- before his brain catches up and his jaw snaps shut. The words that he didn't say lingers in the air. The shape of his mouth was formed in the shape of ' _it wasn't_.' 

Hannibal thinks: _It wasn’t a_ rape. That's what Will almost said.

Instead, Will chooses to say aloud, "I almost wondered if it had been a dream -- me telling you.”

“Wondered? Or hoped?”

“ _Of course_ , hoped." Will smiles, unpleasantly, and his eyes close, and his canines are the dull color of pearls. His eyelids are almost translucent. Hannibal wants to slide his tongue along the seams of his blue veins. With his beatific expression unchanging, Will says quietly, "As if I’d ever tell something like that to _you –_ were I in my right mind _._ As if I could ever trust _you_ enough to allow you any more of my secrets.”

Will doesn’t mean this, of course. His forts are strong enough to withstand any impulse, were he truly determined for them to hold; even alcohol could never compel him to divulge anything he did not want to divulge. He _wanted_ to tell Hannibal. Hannibal is certain of this. His certainty is what allows him to remain cool in the face of such a blatant attempt at provocation.

“Well then,” he says genially, “I am all the more honored by your words. The greatest honors are always the ones we do not deserve.”

Silence. 

Will was expecting some sort of tongue lashing, Hannibal knows. Will was prepared to return fire. He always is. But Hannibal’s gentleness has disarmed him -- gentleness always has that effect on Will -- and he seems to deflate, and he rubs his eyes, and he exhales sharply, and he says, “Hannibal. Look. Look, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to -- snap at you. I just think we – you – should forget about this whole thing. Forget I told you what I told you.” 

His voice is still a bit gruff, almost angry, but underneath where it is angry, it is ripe with something very close to shame, and Hannibal cannot bear _that_. No, anything but that. Not when Will has already come so far. Not when so many skins of shame have been peeled away from him already. Hannibal takes a cautious step away from the stove, towards Will. 

“I think it would behoove you to speak about it. Buried things tend to fester. The purifying effect of – “

“ _Stop.”_

Hannibal stops – both his words and his steps.

 _"Listen_ to me, Hannibal. For once in your life, listen to me.” 

Hannibal listens; he listens, even though he is rather offended at Will's implication. It is true enough that Hannibal doesn’t always _heed_ Will, but he does always _listen_ to Will. Of course he does. He loves nothing more. In the dark, and in the light, and in the kitchen, and in the marketplace, and in the garden, and in their bed. Hannibal’s hungry ears swallow up all of Will’s sarcastic quips, his gulping laughter, the little whimpers that he makes him when he dreams, the sound that bleeds from him when he comes. He could recognize the pattern of Will’s breathing in a crowd of hundreds. Could find Will by the timber of his sighs, the rushing of his blood. Could pinpoint him the way a fox does a rabbit buried deep beneath the snow: by the rhythm of his heartbeat. 

Will says, “This is _not_ something I want to discuss or – or – _psychoanalyze._ Ever." His eyes are narrow and his mouth is fierce. "It’s over. It’s something in my past and it doesn’t – it means nothing. Just let it be, OK? Don’t make me regret telling you. I’ve never … " He clears his throat, looking almost stricken. “I’ve never told anyone this before, you know. Anyone but you.” 

There's no reason that this should surprise Hannibal. Hannibal is surprised anyway. Like himself, Will has a survivor’s instinct; he protects his soft spots as fiercely as a beast does its vulnerable belly. The thought of it, then: that Will has entrusted this confession of his to Hannibal’s keeping – that Will believes Hannibal, unlike all anyone who ever came before, has the unique ability to shoulder the delicacy and the weight and the burden and the horror of Will's secret – makes Hannibal proud and uneasy in equal measure. 

He's broken many delicate things before, but few as delicate as this. Few which could so easily destroy what he and Will have built together, and, therefore, destroy him. It occurs to Hannibal that, were he the sort of man who were able to feel fear, he would be feeling it now. 

Perhaps something of his internal workings are showing on his face. They shouldn’t, but Will has never minded _shouldn'ts_. His expression softens. He walks over to Hannibal, his bare feet soundless on the tile, and slings his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders. 

“Stop _thinking_ about it,” he mutters. “It’s OK. It was a long time ago; Idon’t even think about it much anymore. I told you because I know so many pieces of you. And I want you to know every piece of me. Now you do, and that’s enough. Now, just let it go.” And then, Will's coup de grâce: he lowers his chin -- peers up with his eyelashes -- murmurs, in a tone of sly, vulnerable entreaty, “If you love me, Hannibal, you’ll let it go.” 

Hannibal laughs. He laughs happily, from the stomach. Will meets his gaze impishly, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and he looks like he wants to laugh too. They both know that this is manipulation of the coarsest kind (that's another piece of information, that Will should be desperate enough about this particular secret to resort to coarseness). Still, coarse manipulation can work as well as subtlety, at least when it’s Will doing the manipulating, and Hannibal puts a hand in Will’s hair, pulls him back, kisses his mouth, his nose, his eyes. 

“Of course I will let it go, Will,” he says gently, “if you desire it." And he knows even as he speaks that he won’t. 

Behind them, the teakettle begins to scream. 

tbc (1/3 chapters)


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this rapidly while drunk pls forgive errors and bad writing

For the rest of the day (and the day after that, and the day after that), Hannibal thinks about it. Will is, Hannibal presumes, none the wiser about it; Hannibal can run multiple trains of thought at the same time, can be present in the physical world in which Will lives and not-present in the physical world in which Will lives at the exact same time. He thinks and thinks and thinks. He thinks as he fixes their meals; and as he waters their herb garden; and as he writes his indulgent, desultory poetry; and as he reads his books; and one evening, while he's sitting in the library, reading -- thinking -- in the half-light, a realization comes upon him. 

He thinks: _I have been feeling an emotion of some strength for many days now. And this emotion will not fade on its own._

It is a complex emotion, a braid with many strands. The first strand Hannibal can identify easily, for he's felt its sting before: betrayal. It's not Will whom he feels betrayed by this time, nor is it himself; he feels betrayed by, perhaps, the universe. By fate. He'd thought, after their fall off the cliff, that he'd known everything about Will that there was to know. He'd been content, complacent in his certainty. How foolish of him. How full of hubris. He was like a medieval scholastic who, whilst never having stepped foot outside of the grounds of his monastery before, was convinced that he'd exhausted all the stores of knowledge which nature could offer. 

Hannibal should have known. He _should_ have known. How? He doesn't know. He's not so ignorant to think that _it_ – the rape – would leave some sort of mark or sign. No, he was not so foolish. And yet – 

\--

He knows so little still. Only the little pieces which Will exhaled, almost bashfully, into Hannibal’s neck during that night when he gave his secret to Hannibal's safekeeping. 

Here is what Hannibal knows:

That Will was twelve years old when it happened. That it was a family friend; his father’s buddy; a teacher at the middle school that Will attended (of course, of course, most perpetrators of sexual violence are known to the victim beforehand). Hannibal knows from previous conversations -- from private research -- from implicit hints -- that Will's father was an alcoholic. Negligent. Oblivious. How grateful young Will must have been to receive any sort of attention from a father-like figure. How desperately he must have needed approval, guidance. Love.

As an adult, Will is not a small man. He's stolid and muscular. His features – though certainly elfin, certainly lovely – are lovely in the way that a man's are; he's solid lines, a sharp jaw, a heavy brow made heavier by his own penchant for dissatisfaction. At twelve years old, though, Will would only have been on the cusp of puberty. His bones would have been thickening beneath his skin. His cells would have been multiplying rapidly. He would have just started undergoing the process that would make him a man -- but the process was only beginning. Ge wasn't a man -- not yet. At twelve years old, he would still have been small-boned and narrow. Vulnerable when held in some faceless man's arms. Vulnerable when kissed on his thin lips. The man, the _rapist_ , would have coaxed Will with words half-cajoling, half-threatening, and all the while, Will was still a boy -- only a boy -- 

Hannibal closes his book, hard, without realizing it. The sound of the pages snapping shut is loud in the silent library. Will won’t notice. Will is away. Will is at the market. Will will be back with fresh fruit and boat parts and baked goods and random odds and ends. He will be back soon. Hannibal itches with the urge to stand up and find him. To hunt him down. To sniff him and scruff him and engulf him and keep him tucked away. It's a base, stupid urge. Hannibal is not that sort of animal.

He makes himself open the book again, makes himself flip to the page that he last read. As he does, he listens (he always listens) for the sounds of Will’s return. The trains in his mind run and run. On the page, Raskolnikov says bitterly to Sonya, “I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.”

–

That night, Hannibal makes a hearty carbonada criolla. He uses some of the dried apricots which Will brought home from the market. 

“It’s great,” Will says, smiling, and eats with exaggerated relish. He moans. Flutters his eyelids. He knows how much Hannibal appreciates the performance. Appreciates _him_. Appreciates lookingat him, and hearing him, and being with him. When he's in a cheerful mood, Will finds Hannibal's intent focus on him amusing; when he's not, Will finds it unbearable.

But Will seems cheerful enough tonight. Indeed, since the night of his confession, Will has been coasting on a tide of good feeling. He has not yet fallen into one of his regular periods of depression: those weeks' long phases when he disappears into some black gulf in his own mind, when he slinks around the manor, around Hannibal, like a ghost. Perhaps Will feels lightened, now that he has given his confession to Hannibal. It’s a thought that warms Hannibal as much as the stew they’re eating. 

When dinner is over, they fuck. 

They fuck often nowadays. Will likes being the one to fuck and the one to be fucked; he likes everything. He is not shy in this, as he's shy in so many other ways, for he's always considered his body the most meaningless part of himself. Hannibal looks down at him, at the sheen of sweat on Will's back; on the red blooms where Hannibal has put his mouth; on the ladder of Will's spine, twisting a sinuous trail down from Will's beautiful brain to the point where their bodies meet. It's an impossible, a beautiful, a familiar sight. 

But, this time, something warps. While Hannibal is not empathetic on an emotional level, his cognitive empathy is finely-tuned; after all, its what helped him survive for so long, unnoticed, in 'proper' society. Suddenly, he can envision what _that man_ would have thought, looking down from the same position. Suddenly, he sees Will in his youth, sees bruised knees and tan skin. Desperation. Hunger. _Something small and weak_ , the man would have thought. _Something that could be controlled, contorted, claimed._

Hannibal’s grip slips and falters on Will’s damp sides. His hips pump smoother, softer. His breathing, usually easily controlled, becomes shallow and rapid. 

Will is frustrated by the new pace. He pushes back into Hannibal's hands, into his cock. “More,” he growls, “harder, Hannibal.” 

Like a machine, Hannibal picks up the thrusts of his hips again; he is used now to following Will’s requests, his commands, by default. He thinks, idly: _Will’s beard wouldn’t have existed back then._ He’s seen Will without a beard a few times. He looked like a cherub, a boy from a Caravaggio painting. There are Caravaggio paintings at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Argentina. He should bring Will to see them one day. The boys in the Caravaggio paintings are soft, boyish, with lips like glistening dates, and the chiarascuro renders them nearly alive. if Hannibal were to see one of those paintings again, he could reach out a hand. Stroke the paint. 

“ _Hannibal,”_ Will gasps, an impatient edge to his tone. He shifts, he struggles, he's -- he's struggling. He's trying to get away. That's part of their games, usually. Will enjoys the hunt and the chase as much as Hannibal does. Hannibal's response to seeing him struggle is usually gratifying for them both: a playful wave of relish would well within Hannibal's stomach. He'd be taken with the urge to fight, to fuck, to hold, and they'd both enjoy it very much. 

But this time, Hannibal recoils. He recoils as if he’s been horse-whipped across the face. He slips out of Will with a soft sound, with a wince. 

Only then does he realize that he’s gone soft. 

–

“I’ve ruined it,” says Will dejectedly. 

“No,” says Hannibal. He is still naked. They both are. They’re sitting side by side together. Will’s positioned further up on the bed, his right shoulder pressed against the side-board, so that no part of his skin touches Hannibal’s.

“I did. I made it … weird. I knew it would. That’s why I never – that’s why I shouldn’t have told you – “

“ _Will,”_ says Hannibal. His voice comes out sharper than he means it to, and Will flinches. The sharpness was not meant for Will, but for himself. Or for someone else perhaps. He lowers his voice and repeats, “Will. It isn’t anything to do with you. It … isn’t anything that you ought to concern yourself with.” 

Will snorts. “Are you serious? _Everything_ about you concerns me.” 

It is, of course, the same sentiment that Hannibal holds for Will himself.

Though he knows that age and injury and disease bend to no one, Hannibal has, up until now, been blessed with a body that could carry out what was commanded of it, easily and efficiently. He could sleep when he wished to sleep and wake when he wished to wake. He'd never before had a ... _problem_ of this sort. He stares down at the wet, deflated thing lying pathetically against his thigh. He feels betrayed. His penis has disappointed him today. His penis has revealed itself to be a crick in his machine, a flaw in his mechanism.

He is resentfully aware of the absurdity of his own thoughts. 

Will catches him; of course he does. “Don’t blame yourself either, Hannibal,” he says. He sighs and scoots towards Hannibal -- hesitantly, as if afraid of scaring off a gun-shy animal. Finally, through endless increments, he's come close enough to lean his head on Hannibal’s shoulder. His curly hair is damp and flat. It smells deliciously of his sweat and of sex. “It – it’s normal. For partners of ... _abuse victims_ " -- Will nearly chokes on these last words, his upper lip pulling into something like a snarl -- "to, to, y’know ... have trouble ... dealing with it. At first. In general and ... in the bedroom too.” 

Flatly, Hannibal agrees, “It _is_ normal.” He knows it’s normal from his own practice. But he has never been a normal man. _You have brought me low,_ he thinks but does not say, as Will’s breath is hot and cool and hot and cool on his clammy, sweat-damp skin. 

A long time passes, probably.

"It's OK," murmurs Will. Enough time has passed, apparently, for him to become drowsy. He yawns. "it'll be fine."

And, in that instant, Hannibal decides that it _will_ be. It _will_ be fine. He will _make_ it fine. An unstoppable surge of resolution has pierced him through like a knife. He knows what he will do next. 

In his mind, the train that's been running since Will's confession screeches to a halt at its final destination. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry if the writing was rough! i've been working on it for a while but i got sick of it and just decided to post now, imperfections and all and ugh. thanks for reading!


End file.
